Music pitch representation by periodicity measures based on combined temporal and spectral representations

Periodicity estimation of an audio signal, for applications such as pitch, multiple pitch or tempo estimation is often problematic due to the presence of multiple harmonics in the audio signal producing octave errors. While pitch models or rhythm models can be used, they remain often dedicated to a specific problem. In this paper, we propose a straightforward approach for periodicity estimation based on the combination of a spectral representation and a temporal representation. This method allows a better emphasis on the frequencies corresponding to the various pitches. We show the ability of this representation to adequately estimate pitch and visualize signals with multiple pitch content.